These are challenging times for UK chalet companies in the European Alps.
Chaletline has been helping British holidaymakers choose their catered chalet holidays since 1999 and in that time the laws and regulations have changed several times.
Catered chalets are more upmarket now
Catered chalet standards have risen significantly
Chalets are now of a much higher standard in general, with better facilities and some excellent cuisine.
Chalets with hot tubs are common and wi-fi in chalets is almost universal (you can find 920 on the Chaletline database).
But the basic format of a chalet holiday has remained largely unchanged. You travel to the Alps and are looked after in a typically traditional-style chalet by British staff.
Family chalet holidays
Ski guiding and ski escorting banned
Two recent changes are impacting on this however.
Firstly, most British skiers will know about the legal case that currently prevents British tour operators from offering ‘social skiing’ services in France.
Back in the day, this service was better known as skiing with a company’s ‘ski guide’ or ‘ski escort’. The idea is that this person would show guests around the resort ski area, giving them someone to ski with and helping with their orientation. Tuition has never been part of this service.
However, since last year, ‘social skiing’ has not been permitted. This is due to an ongoing court case against the tour operator Le Ski.
We don’t propose to go into the details of this case in this blog. There is an excellent summary here. The key point is that currently tour operators are not allowed to offer this service.
This has been the case for over a year now and this week the appeal date was set at 02 July. Le Ski are supported in the case by other tour operators such as Crystal Ski, Skiworld and Inghams.
They are confident they will ultimately prevail and the service will be offered again.
Le Ski staff
Costs going up for chalets in Switzerland
The other news this week that affects British chalet companies came from Switzerland.
As reported by welove2ski, new legislation will mean that employees in the hotel and catering industry will have to be paid a minimum of £33000 pa.
This massive increase in the cost base won’t make it feasible for tour operators to offer chalet holidays in Switzerland.
Staff are currently paid significantly less than this, although their package does include accommodation, insurance, lift pass, meals, uniform and equipment.
Andy Perrin from Ski Total said:
“We would hate politicians and bureaucrats who don’t even live in ski resorts to bring an end to this with a cavalier disregard for mountain communities”.
And so would the Chaletline team!
Zermatt is a great resort for a chalet holiday
Chaletline will keep you updated
On behalf of the tens of thousands of British skiers and snowboarders who go to France and Switzerland for their skiing holidays each year, we will be watching these stories closely for you.
Hopefully good sense will prevail and if and when that happens we will report it here.
In the meantime, if you have any questions about chalet holidays in France or Switzerland, please contact the Chaletline team.
Article by Iain Martin